


Crayons

by ChildOfSolace



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 09:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24349039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChildOfSolace/pseuds/ChildOfSolace
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Crayons

Standing in front of a full-body mirror, Ryuuichi was repeatedly assaulted by the patting hands of Saikawa. Sturdy and firm, they patted away at his shoulders, sides, and legs. Only just now was Ryuuichi becoming accustomed to the act so as to stop flinching with each stiff contact of the man’s grooming.

“I don’t think this is really necessary,” he complained.

“Nonsense,” came a voice from the bed. Ms. Morinomiya tapped her cane against the hardwood floor forcefully. “No ward of mine is going out on his first date dressed like it’s casual Saturday. Do you _want_ people spreading rumors I’m not taking care of you? Isn’t that right, Kotarou?” she asked the boy resting in her opposite hand.

“Baa…” The old maid’s eyes shifted to check the two fiddling in front of the mirror before sneaking a wry smile at the little child.

“And Saikawa went through all the trouble of hand-tailoring that for you. If you’re not going to show a little gratitude then maybe you can take up the duty of chores.”

“Don’t worry,” Saikawa assured, leaning in toward Ryuuichi’s ear. “She wouldn’t dare. She’d never punish _me_ too if I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Well, still… do you think Kotarou’s going to be okay alone while I’m gone all night?”

“Activities have been prepared for his recreation and enrichment both. And if he misses you too dearly, he can always call.”

As if on cue, the hall phone began to rattle with a shrill ringing sound. Which is to say, of course, that it had begun ringing. Ryuuichi excused himself and took the responsibility of answering it, much to Saikawa’s disappointment.

“Hello, Morinomiya residence.”

“Oi,” came the voice on the other end of the phone, bluntly. There needn’t be any further exchange for Ryuuichi to immediately recognize it as the dull tone of Hayato. Ryuuichi’s heart nearly did a backflip in its ribcage. But was it from excitement, or apprehension?

“Taka wouldn’t stop crying, begging to tag along. Says if we’re going on a date, then he wants to go on a date with Kotarou too. I know it’s a pain in the ass, but would it be alright if he came along and you brought the kid?” Sure enough, the sound of screaming came through loud and clear over the phone, although now numbed as the boy heard his brother being true to his request.

“Aw, that’s really sweet.”

“Yeah, well, mom’s not in tonight either, so I didn’t really have a choice but to ask anyway.”

“It should be fine, it might make things less…” Whoops, it might sound rude to suggest the date would be awkward, Ryuuichi decided, and quickly changed the subject. “Anyway, yeah, it sounds fun. It’s a date,” he said, absent-mindedly. Though the unintended joke seemed to get through, as a very soft and dry chuckle breathed ever so slightly past the earpiece.

“Alright then. See you in about an hour.” They both hung up and Ryuuichi made his return trip to the guest room.

“There’s been a slight change of plans,” he announced on his entry. Two pairs of eyes slid icily toward him at this. “Taka’s going to be coming too, so Hayato asked if Kotarou could come along. Would you like to go on a double-date with me, Hayato, and Taka, Kotarou?”

Faced with newfound responsibility, Kotarou stared vacantly, anxiously, between everyone in the room before finalizing his decision with a solemn, resolute nod.

“I suppose we’ll have to settle with something more subtle for the younger young master. I’ll fetch his preferred panda hoodie. The forecast says it will be chilly.”

“Thanks so much for your help, Mr. Saikawa.” Ryuuichi retrieved his brother from Ms. Morinomiya’s hand.

“It’s nothing at all,” he said, turning his back to the two. A hand shifted, only barely changing his silhouette, as a handkerchief dabbed his cheeks.

“Are you crying?” Ms. Morinomiya stared intently at him with this.

“They just grow up so fast,” he whispered in a hushed breath only for his employer’s ears.

***

Once Ryuuichi and Kotarou were all dressed and ready to go, the heads of the house saw them off. The two took to the streets toward the restaurant. Only Saikawa let out an exasperated breath.

“It’s a pity all those activities will go to waste. I’d scheduled a rousing itinerary for the young-young master.”

“Yeah?” Ms. Morinomiya asked, though only barely.

Saikawa’s head tilted upward out of its pity and he produced from his pocket a coloring book and crayons. He held them out toward the old woman. Though his glasses wore a glare and his eyes were obscured, his eyebrows were arched, expectant. With a groan and a grumble, the chairwoman snatched the objects from his hands and slammed shut the door.

***

The restaurant the couple had picked out for their date was neither ritzy nor trashy. Indeed it was a simple restaurant. The kind which might receive four star reviews from tourists or drifters but be otherwise overlooked by the locals. When at last they met up at the front (the Kamitanis arriving expectably late), Hayato’s eyes widened in bewilderment.

“We going to a gala you didn’t tell me about?”

Ryuuichi’s face immediately burst into a flurry of red. In his anticipation, he’d nearly forgotten about the two-piece suit his custodians had him wear.

“N-no… they… insisted I wear this. I’m… sorry…” Hayato eyed his date up a few more times before continuing.

“Damn, you’re dressed up,” he finally let out. In truth, he felt severely underdressed and inadequate in his hoodie, jeans, and sneakers. “You look nice,” he said after the longest silence in a rare state of social courteousness.

“So do you,” Ryuuichi gushed, his face turning untold shades of red. He reinforced his appreciation of his date’s natural appearance, underdressed or not.

“I think!” A voice which had gone far too quiet for far too long blurted. “That! Kotarou also looks very nice!” As if scared by his own declaration, Taka hid behind his brother’s leg immediately following this. Ryuuichi crouched down to greet Taka.

“It’s nice to have you join us on our date, Taka.” Ignoring this, the boy was instantly star-struck.

“Are you the Prime Ministrator?” he bumbled out clumsily. This made Ryuuichi that much more embarrassed.

“It’s Minister,” Hayato corrected roughly.

“That’s what I said! It’s Ministrator!” Taka already began bellowing, he was seconds into his first tantrum of the night. Of which, one might rest assured, there would likely be many. Hayato’s fist began its rise when suddenly Ryuuichi caught it. Shocked, Hayato looked over. Taka too was caught unaware, as he brought himself out of cowering from the anticipated blow to the head.

“No. Please don’t,” Ryuuichi begged politely. The embarrassment may well have transferred through their hands as Hayato looked away from having been scolded.

“Yeah? Well what do you want me to do? He’s being a brat. If he wants to cause a scene on our date then maybe I should’ve left him home to get kidnapped by burglars.” Taka wailed.

“If you don’t like the way he’s behaving, then be the person you want him to be. He copies you, you know.”

Hayato’s fist slowly relinquished into an open palm within Ryuuichi’s grasp. Slowly, although perhaps entirely more rough than Ryuuichi had meant, Hayato tousled his little brother’s hair. It was just confusing enough for Taka to cease crying. Kotarou stepped forward and paid his own date a polite nod. Content with his influence, Ryuuichi reached once more for Hayato’s hand and clasped it gingerly. The rough callouses nearly scratched up his hand with the death grip Hayato was employing (a sign of compassion) but it only made the act all the more endearing. The two turned and entered the restaurant. Mimicking this, Taka grabbed Kotarou by the hand and dragged him along into the restaurant as well.

The two couples approached the hostess and were seen to their table. The two children were given booster seats, to Taka’s numerous protests. Seeing the two children accompanying them, their waitress returned with a kiddie meal placemat and some crayons for them both. Taka made several attempts to impress his date with how well he brandished each crayon as an elemental dagger, and at one point, clumsily between his fingers like Wolverine. Kotarou, however, was preoccupied with his crafts.

***

A similar event was unfolding at the Morinomiya Manor as the two would-be chaperones argued at the dinner table.

“My lady, you _must_ stay inside of the lines,” Saikawa protested.

“Damn the lines! You try keeping within these… flat _prisons_ with arthritis!” Although she said this, a look at her several ripped-out pages showed a very clear disregard for even attempting anything but a smear of color in the dead-center of the page.

“It’s simple. You need only patience.”

With a grin, Saikawa took the farm animal coloring book from his employer and took in his hand a crayon with such finesse as any other tool he might wield. With great grace and dexterity, he exemplified an ideal drawing experience. The waxy tip of his colorful instrument glided across the thick, coarse paper of the book. All the while keeping the stoic face of a master pianist. When he had at last exhausted his need for the color, he opened his eyes with a sense of pride. His shit-eating grin suddenly sank, however, to notice that he had, at multiple junctions, crossed over the lines in varying degrees of overlap.

“Hah!” Ms. Morinomiya guffawed. “Not so easy, is it?” Holding his head in his hands, shocked and confused, Saikawa stared intently at the page as he formulated a course of action.

***

At the restaurant, Ryuuichi and Hayato held several conversations. About television. Classwork. Club duties. When things took a turn toward their hobbies, Hayato brought up a subject almost indignantly.

“You didn’t make it to my last game,” he said, mumbling, afraid of speaking too loudly as to sound genuinely angry.

“I know… I felt really bad about it, but Kotarou wasn’t feeling well. I had to stay back to take care of him.”

“You dote on him too much.” Hayato stuffed his face with a bit of food and turned his head. Guilt washed him like a freezing ocean. His little brother, who aside from the occasional outburst, had been very well behaved on their double-date. And yet, here he was, the one acting like a brat. He hadn’t meant to sound so selfish, but his words were already spoken.

“I just want to look after him. I worry about him.” If he felt bitter, Ryuuichi’s words betrayed no hint of it. “I know you worry about Taka in your own ways too. Like what kind of man he’ll become.”

Unable to articulate anything in response, Hayato merely continued to shovel food into his mouth. This bothered Ryuuichi not, who knew that emotional conversation— or indeed in-depth conversation at all— were not his boyfriend’s strong suits. Nor was this the setting to work on getting him to open up about his feelings. Still, Hayato was becoming more and more irritable the more he felt he was digging himself into a social hole. Ryuuichi decided that it was at this moment that would be best suited to pulling out his surprise. He produced a small box wrapped with an ornamental bow. Hayato accepted it hesitantly.

Inside was a baseball. Practically unimpressed by some sort of practical joke, his eyes slid up to lock with his date’s.

“It’s the homerun ball you hit during that one game. It went into the crowd and I caught it, remember? It might sound silly, but I’ve treasured it. I keep it on one of those little ball mounts on my nightstand. If it’s not too selfish, I was wondering if you’d autograph it.”

Hayato took the ball out of the box carefully, and noticed a second object inside. It was a small photograph of Ryuuichi.

“I know it’s really conceited but… I don’t really have anything by the way of talents or even hobbies, so I was thinking maybe you could put it in your locker?” At this, Hayato become flustered beyond the words he wasn’t even using.

Almost hastily, he took Ryuuichi’s pen, signed the ball, handed it over, and propped his elbow on the table, hand fully covering his mouth to hide his blush. His eyes were thoroughly diverted at anything in the restaurant that wasn’t Ryuuichi.

Not that this would have necessarily mattered, as Ryuuichi’s own eyes were fixating on the signed ball. Indeed there was Hayato’s signature, but next to it was a surprise he could have never anticipated. A single, silent, heart. Its presence on the ball spoke louder than any words, it was deafening, really. Or maybe that was just all the blood rushing to his head, muffling his ears. Either way, the gesture warmed him like dragon’s fire.

***

As the date wound to a close, and conversation had only just barely resumed between the boyfriends, the time came to leave. This was not before the date’s end could be marked by the cries of Taka, however.

“Kotarou barely spoke to me the whole date!” he whined. “Does he not like me? Does he hate me?” He wailed. Kotarou, noticing his date’s squalls, looked up, puzzled. Now freed from their high chairs, Taka rushed Kotarou in anger and sadness. He pantomimed punches in his sorrow. Kotarou, however, in response, merely put his palm gently to Taka’s forehead which caused an abrupt stop. During this silence, Kotarou held his other hand from behind his back and handed his placemat over to Taka.

His coloring skills were impeccable! He had not only stayed completely within the lines, but had used multiple colors to create a beautiful picture on the placemat.

“Kotarou must have heard about my gift for Hayato,” Ryuuichi explained, “And felt bad he didn’t prepare anything for you. So he wanted to make sure he made you something special while he was here.” Now that he thought about it, Kotarou wasn’t that different from Hayato. Both were strong but silent, preferring to solve their problems on their own instead of bothering others. Neither rarely let their emotions show, but always held them close to their hearts. Taka cried again, only now his tears were of happiness as he reached out for the picture.

“Oi, you’re getting tears and snot all over it.” Taka let out another loud cry and threw his tiny arms around his Kotarou’s neck in a hug. Now he was the one who felt guilty for thinking his date didn’t care. Thinking quickly, he took his own placemat he had doodled on during Kotarou’s silence and held it out in return.

The coloring was more like several lines drawn over the picture on the mat. The main attraction was Taka’s own doodling he’d done on the placemat. Knights, and dragons, and robot soldiers paraded all around the margins and in-between the scene of the placemat creating his own story. Kotarou stared at it blankly as Taka became more and more nervous. But at last, Kotarou’s eyes grew large with admiration and he took it from him and held it close to his chest. Taka, incapable of containing his joy, cheered and jumped that his appreciation had been reciprocated.

Outside the restaurant, Ryuuichi and Hayato looked all around nervously. Beating around the bush long enough, they leaned in and concluded their date with a brief, but meaningful, peck on the lips.

“Should we finish our date with a kiss too?” Taka asked, disgusted by the idea.

“Nope,” his brother answered swiftly and picked Taka up. “My brother’s not going to be easy.”

“Hayato, don’t say things like that in front of him. It’s okay Taka, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You should go at a pace that is comfortable for you and isn’t too fast. Also you’re a baby, so no.”

“What’s ‘easy?’” Ryuuichi heard Taka ask as they waved and parted ways

“Ask mom. Just tell her you heard it from Usaida.”

***

Once the brothers arrived back home from their date, Ryuuichi’s face burning bright and his eyes lit like stars, focused on the heart next to his boyfriend’s signature, they were greeted by a disheveled Mr. Saikawa and Ms. Morinomiya, the latter of whom had the odd crayon sticking out of her curly hair.

“What… happened here,” Ryuuichi asked, being brought down from his dreamland and back to Earth.

“A simple… disagreement. Nothing you need worry yourself over.” Ryuuichi craned his neck a bit to the side to see into the dining room, wherein were several crumpled balls of paper, crayons and colored pencils in various stages of snapped and intactness, rulers and protractors, and a couple magnifying glasses.

“Okay,” he conceded. Kotarou stepped forward and held out to each of them an additional drawing he had done at the restaurant as gifts to bring home to his caretakers. “Oh! Kotarou wanted to give those to you. He worked hard on them at the restaurant.” The two lamented, silently, as their eyes scrutinized their gifts to find that not a single color escaped its boundary and leaked into its neighbor’s field. A feat which, as evidenced by their state and the mess in the dining room, they themselves could not recreate even through rigorous measures. The two sighed, and thanked the young-young master for their gifts.

***

That night, Ryuuichi found it incredibly difficult to find sleep. He spent a good majority of his night staring at the signed ball on its little stand. Or more specifically, he stared at the meaningful heart. Lying back-to-back, Kotarou similarly admired the drawing his dear friend Taka had given him. It rested on his own nightstand with a fine, fancy frame Saikawa had given him.

***

Elsewhere…:

Saikawa and Ms. Morinomiya worked late into the night cleaning up the mess they had made together of their arts and crafts supplies.

Hayato’s heart thumped wildly as he stared into the eyes of the Ryuuichi in his photo, getting about as little sleep as the real Ryuuichi.

Taka slept like a rock from tiring himself out with his multiple tantrums. He bragged about his date all day the next day at daycare.

Usaida did _not_ receive an angry confrontation from Ms. Kamitani, as she immediately realized it was her older son who’d taught her child a new naughty word.

Yagi Tomoya slipped into a coma due to unrelated events and never woke up and nobody mourned him.


End file.
